


I’m begging you (to keep on haunting me)

by girlsarewolves



Series: exchanges [28]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Character Death, F/F, Femslash, Gaslighting, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Murder, Past Abuse, Past Kara Danvers/Mon-El, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23798992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: From the moment Kara sets foot inside the apartment, she just knows - this is where she belongs. Whether it’s how bright it is from all the natural light that gets in or how quaint and cozy it feels, she doesn’t know and doesn’t care. This is it - what she’s been looking for. A home.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Earth-2 Laurel Lance
Series: exchanges [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1269893
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: Deadly Intent Exchange





	I’m begging you (to keep on haunting me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



> I was really trying for serial killer murder girlfriends but this decided to be way more serious and dramatic instead. I hope you enjoy it though! Also included a bonus at the end.
> 
> Warnings: this fic deals with a character coming out of an abusive relationship and struggling with her mental health. I have tried to be as accurate and respectful as possible, especially as someone who deals with anxiety/depression myself. There is a lot of questioning one's sanity, and some not very graphic but definitely obvious references to the past abusive relationship. Please heed the tags. Also, this story is not kind to Mon-El. Fair warning.

* * *

From the moment Kara sets foot inside the apartment, she just knows - this is where she belongs. Whether it’s how bright it is from all the natural light that gets in or how quaint and cozy it feels, she doesn’t know and doesn’t care. This is it - what she’s been looking for. A home.

The long search for a new place to live has been full of unpleasant surprises and too outside of her budget temptations - so when she finds a listing for a small apartment just outside of inner National City that looks cozy and isn’t ten thousand dollars over her budget, it seems almost too good to be true.

Seeing it in person, that feeling grows stronger. But the realtor shows her around, goes over the contract, the rules of the complex, the perks for those living there - and then assures her, for the hundredth time, yes, it really is that much lower than how high Kara was willing to pay.

The wait for the approval is nerve-wracking. Kara spends most of it at her sister’s place pacing the floor until Alex orders Chinese food with an extra order of potstickers to try and distract Kara for at least a little while. They put on a movie afterwards - Legally Blonde, which never fails to make Kara laugh and feel a little bit better about the world - and stay up late rambling about everything while Kara tries not to give into the jitters and the anxiety and the negative thought patterns.

“Hey. It’s going to be fine,” Alex promises, reaching over to squeeze one of Kara’s hands that keep picking and pulling at the drawstring of her pajama pants. “You have everything in order, you meet the qualifications, and they seemed to really like you.”

Kara nods, smiles - closes her eyes and just breathes. Trying to breathe out all the nerves and worries that are giving her a headache. The fact that it’s two a.m. and she’s been up since six in the morning probably isn’t helping her state of mind. “You’re right. You’re right - I’m just, I need this to work out, Alex, I need something to work out for me, after…”

Alex is next to her in a second, hugging her close. “I know.”

They don’t mention Michael. They don’t talk about how Kara has trouble sleeping for reasons beyond waiting on some good news or why she’s moved out of her old place or that she’s setting up a PO box in the hope that it helps hide her. They stay there on the sofa and watch reruns of cop shows.

\--

In the morning - edging towards noon - Kara’s cell sets off buzzing. She tries to sound calm and collected when she answers.

“Congratulations, Miss Danvers. You got the apartment.”

Kara and Alex celebrate with cinnamon buns and almost drunken, ecstatic laughter that crosses over into tears - and Kara thinks that maybe this means things will work out, maybe this will be the fresh start she needs and not a brief respite from an oppressive and unpredictable storm.

\--

It only takes half a day to move in - the apartment is mostly furnished, and Kara brought very few belongings beyond necessities and clothes and a few groceries picked up on the way over at Alex’s insistence. Whatever is missing that she might need she’ll figure out over the next week and write up a list to check off with each paycheck.

Alex offers to spend the night there - it’s a new place, and Kara’s been crashing with her for so long now, and other reasons that Kara loves Alex for but are exactly why she needs Alex to leave.

“I’ll be fine. Promise. I need tonight to be something I do on my own,” she tells her sister - who gets it, Alex does even if she’s reluctant to listen - before giving her a hug. “If I get spooked or anything, I’ll call you. Besides, you need to get a decent night’s sleep for once.” She smiles and puts on a brave face and acts like she’s thrilled at the prospect of sleeping in this new and strange - and all hers now - place.

For the most part, it’s true.

Alex brushes Kara’s hair back and nods. Her eyes pick up on the nervous edge to Kara’s smile and the way her fingers are fidgeting a little, but she lets it go. “Okay. But promise you will call if anything happens or you need anything. Even me to come back over with ice cream and The Princess Bride.”

Laughter bubbles up in Kara’s chest, pushing back some of her anxiety. “Okay. I promise. Again. No go, shoo with you.” She ushers Alex towards the door, hugs her sister again and whispers her gratitude for everything Alex has done for her - and closes the door of her new home. She tries not to squeal with happiness or cry out of fear, and goes to take some headache medicine to ward off the headache she can feel creeping in.

The medicine cabinet is hanging open in the bathroom. Kara’s prescription bottles lined up on the sink. 

“...huh.” She could have sworn she put them away - one of the few things Alex made sure she found and unpacked were her medications - but maybe she’d simply gotten them all ready for proper placement in the mirror cabinet only to get interrupted and forget to come back and finish. It has to be that. 

Though Kara distinctly remembers placing them on the shelves in the cabinet. Lining them up in order of when they’re to be taken, like always.

“Stop.” Kara closes her eyes and breathes - just breathes. Reminds herself that sometimes memories can be fabricated, tells herself she might have turned her plans into a visualization. Swears that she isn’t crazy, she’s merely tired, and needs to take her nighttime pill and some Tylenol. She tries to ignore how shaky her hands are when she fills a paper cup with tap water or when she opens the prescription bottle or aspirin. Swallows everything down with a gulp of the room temp water that isn’t quite as harsh tasting as the water in her old place - down in the heart of National City where everything is harsher and worse for you - and puts it all away.

_ And in the morning, everything will be there _ , she assures herself before crawling into her new bed, with brand new, clean sheets Alex had bought for her and washed before they came over, and clings to that feeling of belonging. She belongs here. This is home. She’s not crazy.

He isn’t right about her.

\--

Two days later, and the medicine cabinet incident is already forgotten about. Maybe it’s the amazing sleep she’s been getting - still an irregular sleep pattern, but anything more than a couple of hours before dawn is a literal miracle for Kara at this point. Or maybe it’s that the feeling of belonging, that the apartment is something alive and thoughtful and happy she’s there, that’s put her in amazing spirits.

Even Alex has commented on how much happier she seems. “Told you it would work out,” she teases, sitting with Kara at the kitchen counter while they munch on bagels. Her smile softens when she adds, “I’m really glad this place worked out. You deserve it.”

There’s so much she isn’t saying - and Kara is glad, because she doesn’t think she could handle hearing it all yet, she can’t think or talk about what she’s escaped from without mentally drifting back there - but all Kara does is smile around a mouthful of bagel. “Thanks, Alex.” She washes her bite down with a gulp of her coffee. “I was thinking maybe of having a housewarming party, or, apartment warming, I guess. You, Kelly, James, Lena, Nia, Querl - we could have dinner, play games.”

It’s been so long since Kara had a night with friends. It’s been so long since Kara felt like she was free to have fun.

Alex is beaming, nodding. “Yeah. I think that sounds great.” She squeezes Kara’s shoulder. “Kelly and I could help you set up if you want? We could bring food.”

“Nope. No way. You and Kelly have already done so much for me, and Kelly has put up with me crashing on your sofa and keeping you up for way too long, you guys are just going to be guests. Got it?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Alex teases.

Kara laughs and takes a bite of her bagel - and notices her hanging fruit basket faintly swaying over the sink, in front of the closed window. It’s not something new - she’s noticed it swaying randomly a few times. Tells herself it’s the AC vent just below. That’s all.

\--

A week in, and Kara’s nightmares return.

She wakes up choking, something between a scream and a sob caught in her throat while her wrists ache - she wonders if she gripped her own wrists in her sleep, if she’ll wake with familiar bruises circling around them. 

Hands smooth back her hair - cool, comforting. A voice whispers soothingly in her ear, “Just a bad dream. Nothing more.” Those hands push her back down onto the mattress.

The room is dark save for the soft, electric blue of her digital clock. The light blocker curtains - a gift from Kelly, to help her sleep even during the day - are effective.

“Sorry, Alex,” Kara murmurs. She’s shaking, but she’s so tired and feels so small that the cool hands on her forehead, in her hair, lull her back to sleep quickly. She doesn’t remember that Alex was at her own apartment all night, not until she’s awake and walking into the kitchen where the fruit basket is swaying.

“I’m not going crazy,” she almost cries and rushes to take her morning meds.

\--

For the next few weeks, her sleep is fitful and made up of nightmares and hazy moments of being not quite awake where those hands and that soft, sultry voice try to comfort her. Every time, Kara tells herself she’s still dreaming. That her half-asleep mind has conjured up Alex as a security blanket.

But that voice isn’t Alex’s. Those aren’t Alex’s hands. And other than the feel of cool fingers on her face and that voice in her ear, there’s nothing else to indicate someone is in the room with her. No extra weight on the mattress, no rush of breath against her skin. Or maybe there is, but she doesn’t remember that in the morning. Or maybe it’s her own hands, her own voice.

Maybe it’s nothing but a dream.

Or maybe she’s going crazy. Maybe she already was. She’s on medication after all. For anxiety, for depression, for the vitamin D deficiency that came from shutting herself away from her friends and her family and her life outside of a bastard who needed her, couldn’t live without her, couldn’t stand the thought of her being close to anyone else - didn’t she see that they don’t really care about her, only he does? 

There was a time where the bags underneath Kara’s eyes made it easier to cover up the black eyes that he gave her, because she couldn’t see that, so he had to make her see that.

Kara looks at herself, at the bags under her eyes that she has to cover up with make up - something she’s far too talented at these days - and feels like she’s back there. She doesn’t want to be back there. She wants that cozy feeling of belonging back, not the suffocating feeling of being owned that’s creeping its way back in every day.

Some mornings she comes into the bathroom to find her morning bottle waiting for her.

Most mornings the fruit basket sways.

There’s other things, too. Little oddities, strange incidents that feel like someone is sneaking in and playing games on her. The radio will turn off on its own. The TV comes on randomly throughout the day. Sometimes at night, when Kara is in the bedroom pretending to read a book to take her mind off things. Objects in the weirdest places - places she would never leave them or move them too.

Part of Kara is afraid that he’s found her. That he’s punishing her for ending things, for putting distance between them and crawling her way out of the hole he buried her in. 

But that voice isn’t his. Those hands aren’t the hands that hurt her so many times. And despite how often she repeats the mantra ‘it’s just a dream, just a dream’ - Kara knows the truth. Can feel it in her bones. And if that voice, those hands, are real. And if all of that is real, it just begs the question - who’s getting in her apartment?

\--

Security cameras are the answer.

That’s what Kara hopes, at least. She buys a couple of cameras to place all over her bedroom, sets them to night vision. She sets one up in the bathroom, too. Then decides to spare one for the kitchen as well. The favorite places of whoever it is that’s messing with her head while pretending to comfort her from the horror she goes through when asleep.

She doesn’t tell Alex - whether she just doesn’t want to worry Alex or she’s afraid that maybe she is losing her mind, Kara isn’t sure. All she does know is that she wants something concrete - something that will give her answers one way or another before she takes the risk of telling someone else about the odd incidents, the nightly visitor.

By the time she gets home from work after stopping at Walmart to buy every nanny cam they had in stock, it’s almost dark. Kara pops some leftovers in the microwave and starts unpacking everything. Reads over the instructions, grabs the packs of batteries, and sets to work over dinner.

It’s almost comforting. She settles into a sort of flow as she works, getting each camera ready to be placed. Maybe it’s that she’s being proactive - working towards her mental and physical safety instead of just burying her head in the sand and telling Alex and James and anyone else who notices something is wrong that everything really is fine, it’s fine, she’s fine.

Kara is not fine. Kara isn’t sure she’ll ever be fine again. But if she can just take back some damn stability, maybe that will be enough.

After dinner, and all the cameras are ready, she sets up the one in the kitchen. And then a couple in the bedroom. One in the hallway leading to it, angled so she can see the door. She hops into the shower and changes in the bathroom before setting one up in there as well. Most are fairly well hidden - at least she hopes so - but the one in the hall and the one in the bathroom she’s worried about. She arranges towels or plants around them, trying to make them less obvious.

“There. Now we can get some answers,” she says to herself.

Michael always told her that was a sign she was crazy.  _ “You talk to yourself all the time. You always say we. It’s not normal.” _

“Listening to you was the real crazy,” she says out loud to her memory, just for spite. 

\--

Sleep doesn’t come easy. Kara is too keyed up, a jittery combination of hopeful and apprehensive and scared. 

What if nothing happens? What if something happens but the cameras miss it? What if her intruder knows about the cameras? What if it’s all just in her head, and she has to face that in the morning, when she’s certain evidence will be recorded but there’s nothing, no one? 

Worry keeps her body and her mind on edge and full of tired, frantic energy. She tosses and turns and has to go to the bathroom every time she’s comfortable, or her mouth is too dry so she needs water - which then makes her need to go to the bathroom. Every noise sets her on high alert, each lull of silence feels oppressive. Eventually she gets up and paces through the apartment, searching for any sign of intrusion.

In the dark, another thought crosses her mind, one that she almost hysterically laughs out - if she’s really crazy, shouldn’t that have been her first thought? In the dim light of the city that slips past her curtains, shadows look like moving shapes - look like monsters. Look like spirits.

But Kara doesn’t believe in ghosts. Never has. Not a monster under her bed or in her closet, nothing spooky or supernatural. There are too many frightening things in the real world that exist, and her brain has always been wired to question and doubt the extraordinary. So she laughs, because thinking about it, it does feel like a typical haunting talked about on Ghost Hunters or Paranormal Witness or whatever show that’s just a cheap cash in on people’s fear of the unknown.

It makes her wonder how many people who have been ‘haunted’ were just being tormented by someone who wanted them to feel the helpless despair of doubting your own senses.

Eventually she settles back in bed and brings up a podcast on her phone to hopefully drift off to. She doesn’t put on one about ghosts. Or true crime.

\--

In the morning, Kara is dragged out of a deep sleep by the cheerful tone of her phone alarm. It’s the first time she’s slept till it went off in over a week. By the time that observation sinks in, she’s scrambling out of bed and going for the cameras. She makes sure each one is where she left it, still running, and quickly goes to scour through the footage.

There were no nightmares, no awful dreams. No hands in her hair or a voice in her ear. Nothing that she can remember. The absence of those things terrifies her, forms a bottomless pit in her stomach that threatens to swallow her whole.

What if she’s just crazy?

She spends the whole day off searching through the footage from each camera, trying not to burst into tears. It gets harder after each one. There’s nothing. No sign of anything amiss, no evidence of anyone in the apartment. She tells herself that it doesn’t happen every night, so tonight was just one of those quieter ones - but that offers little comfort.

“I’m crazy,” she whispers, hugging her legs to her chest and fighting off tears. She rests her forehead on her knees and tries not to shake, tries to regulate her breathing. She feels out of control. “I really am crazy.”

The sound of something being set down on her desk cuts through her struggles with a crying fit, and then a familiar voice tells her, “No, you’re not. But you might not take my word for it.”

Kara’s head shoots up and stares in the direction of the voice. Reflex makes her grab the mug that was just set down and chuck it at the woman standing there in her apartment, standing there beside the desk only a couple of feet away from Kara, standing there like she owns the damn place. “What the - who the hell are you?! How did you get in my apartment?!” Kara is out of her chair, grabbing her cell and about to dial 911, except the woman has caught her mug and yanking the cell from Kara’s grip like it’s nothing.

“Don’t. Because they will think you’re crazy.” The woman sighs and sets both items on the desk before folding her arms. Her face is lovely but sharp, and the scowl on it only highlights the sharpness of her features. “I don’t have much time. This takes too much concentration.”

“What takes too much concentration?” Kara asks, confused and freaked out and maybe a little bit angry. She feels insane just standing there instead of tackling the woman or running away, but maybe she’s just grown used to the bizarre.

“Being visible. Being tangible.”

“Yeah, that makes no sense.”

The woman exhales harshly, eyes rolling. “No shit. Listen - I’m not going to show up on your cameras. I can’t. But I’m not a threat. And you’re not crazy. I’m still...learning. This is new for me, okay? All the others, they ditched early on because I couldn’t control what I could do and was still figuring things out. Including the fact that I’m dead.”

Kara blinks. Several times. And then she just starts laughing. It bubbles over and out, frantic, hysterical, uncontrollable and verging on painful. She’s crying, too, tears streaming down her face as she clutches her ribs - because of course. She really is crazy. She’s genuinely insane. Lost her damn marbles at last. Maybe she’s off her meds without realizing, maybe she’s still asleep - or maybe she’s having a psychotic break after everything, she just couldn’t handle it anymore and lost grip on reality.

By the time she calms down - on the floor, ribs aching and throat and face and head in pain from the breakdown - she’s alone again. But then she always was, wasn’t she? It’s all just been in her head.

“Feeling better?”

Kara bursts into small, pitiful sobs.

\--

The next time Kara becomes aware, it’s morning again. She’s laying on the sofa, a blanket draped over her. In the kitchen the fruit basket is swaying while someone - the woman from yesterday - moves around. Kara sits up and stares as the woman fixes a mug of coffee and brings it over.

“I couldn’t get you to the bedroom. You kept slipping through me.” Her blonde hair is parted drastically to the side. She dressed casually, in almost all black. She has a septum piercing, and her make-up is dark, dramatic. She’s a figment of Kara’s imagination, so of course she’s beautiful, but against Kara’s usual type. “Hey, you with me? I have your morning medication and coffee.”

The utter bizarreness of a delusion bringing her coffee and meds makes Kara lay back down, staring up at the ceiling. “I need to call my therapist.”

“Honestly, you probably should. But don’t mention me.”

“Sounds like something a hallucination would say.”

That exasperated sigh again. “I’m real. I’m dead and a spirit, but I’m real. And I know how ridiculous that sounds, but please take your pill. After the hassle of making sure you swallowed the one last night, I’d prefer you didn’t just not bother with the next round.”

Kara slowly looks over at the woman. “What?”

“You were out of it. Not that I can really blame you. So after trying and failing to get you to the bedroom, I succeeded in getting you on the sofa, got your nighttime medication, and made sure you swallowed it. You looked like you needed it. You still look like you need it, so please don’t miss a dosage.”

Everything feels so surreal - but hallucination or not, Kara does need to stay on her meds. So she props herself back up into a sitting position and takes her mug and her pill and downs it with a refreshing gulp of coffee. Something about it is so normal and so familiar that she feels a little more stable, for lack of a better word, that when she looks at the other woman, she doesn’t feel quite so lost.

“So. You’re a ghost?”

“I’ve established that already, but yes. You can call me Dinah.” Dinah sits down on the far end of the sofa, but there’s no weight to her, no effect on the cushion underneath. “I know I’ve been setting you off. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to, but, well - truth of the matter is, sometimes I affect things without realizing.”

“Like the fruit basket?”

“Yeah. Or the TV. The radio is usually on purpose though - your taste in music is awful.”

Kara is tempted to throw one of the small sofa pillows at Dinah’s head. She decides against it, though, because she’s not sure what she’ll do if it goes right through the other woman. “My taste in music is fine, but that’s not the point - it’s you at night, isn’t it?”

Dinah has the decency to look a little ashamed. “Your nightmares can get violent. I know what that’s like. Especially at the hands of someone who knows you intimately well.” She doesn’t look at Kara when she adds the last part, and the words strike a nerve.

Kara doesn’t like to think about intimacy. Doesn’t like to think about how well Michael knows her and how close she let him get, how well she let him learn her and her body and heart. She doesn’t like to think of Michael her lover and Michael her abuser as the same person, even though they are - even though Michael the abuser couldn’t have hurt her like he did if he wasn’t also Michael the lover. Kara swallows and pulls her legs up to her chest. Sets her chin on her knees and quietly asks, “Is that how...why you’re a…”

“Dead? A ghost? A restless spirit with unfinished business or something?” Dinah shrugs. “I don’t actually know. Maybe. I didn’t live the best life. I lost people, and it made me hard. Often wound up with the wrong crowds. Kept ending up with men that I owed - who thought because of that, they owned me. And the last one…” Dinah trails off. Her face is bowed, looking at the floor but she’s somewhere else. “He could have killed me. But I don’t remember. And to be honest, I like it that way.”

If this is a hallucination, it’s a doozy of a one. Though Kara can’t rule it out because it’s too closely tied to her own issues and fears and trauma. Still, she decides to go with it for the time being.

“I’m sorry.”

Dinah’s blue eyes are on her in a second, gaze hard. “Don’t. I do not want you pity,” she spits out, all venom. “I made mistakes, but they were mine. Life isn’t fair, and I dealt with it. Whatever happened to me, I lived my life how I chose.”

“Okay. Yeah. Got it.” Kara holds up her hands in surrender. “Sorry. I didn’t, I just - I get it.”

After a few seconds Dinah relaxes, softens a little. “Sorry. Sore subject, and I never was the easiest person to get along with.” She pauses for a moment, eyes looking over Kara. “So. Michael. You say his name a lot in your sleep, but it’s never good. You thought maybe he was doing something?”

Hearing his name out loud is jarring. Kara swallows. “My ex. I have a restraining order. But he...he tried to make me think I was crazy. Especially near the end, when I started pulling away. I still - fuck, I still feel crazy most days. And this isn’t helping. But part of me almost would prefer being crazy than him having tracked me down again.”

A cool hand brushes hair back from her face, and Kara meets Dinah’s gaze. “This situation is quite outside the norm, but you’re not crazy, and he hasn’t found you as far as I know. It’s just been me. And I swear, I’m as real as a ghost can get.”

“You have helped me sleep,” Kara lets slip - maybe because of how comforting the feel of Dinah’s fingers on her skin always is, or maybe because this close she can see even more how beautiful Dinah is. Maybe it’s because she’s so lonely - and even Alex, who she loves more than anything, who understands Kara better than anyone, doesn’t know what it’s like being with someone who hurt you and broke down all your defenses and made you question your own senses, your very perception of reality.

But Dinah does.

And Kara is probably crazy, because Dinah probably doesn’t exist. Dinah is just her, projecting.

It doesn’t stop her from scooting over and laying her head on Dinah’s shoulder - everything feels real, disturbingly real.

“I can’t be corporeal for too long,” Dinah whispers. Her voice sounds pained at the admission. Maybe she is real. Maybe she’s been so lonely, too. “But I’m glad even if I freaked you out, I helped some.”

They stay like that for a while. Eventually, Kara feels herself tilting further towards the sofa arm, like she’s passing through the body that was just supporting her. Dinah crouches in front of her - there’s something in her eyes that makes Kara think she might be sad.

“Get some rest. You actually like your job, so I know you don’t want to call out. You don’t want to go to work a mess, either.”

“Thanks,” Kara whispers. Her eyes are drifting closed, but she smiles at Dinah. There are no nightmares, but when she wakes up - the sun almost set - she can’t find Dinah anywhere. She orders Chinese food and watches the news and tries not to panic or cry or call Alex and tell her sister that she’s crazy, she’s really lost it. Tries not to pine for a ghost that’s really just an imaginary friend.

She sleeps on the sofa again. 

In the morning, the fruit basket is swaying.

\--

It’s two nights later - after stressful shifts at work and dodging Alex’s growing suspicions and concerns - when Kara wakes up screaming, clutching her hands to her chest as her fingers ache from the nightmare - memory - of clawing open the skin of strong arms pinning her down by her neck. That’s when she sees Dinah again.

In the dark, Dinah seems transparent, the artificial light of the street lamps that slips through the cracks in the curtains shining through her.

“Shh. It was just a bad dream. You’re safe.”

Kara can only swallow and nod her head, the motion stilted by her trembling. She lets Dinah guide her back down to the mattress, savors how soothing her hands are. The way they are gentle on her, barely any weight to her touches and guidance. There’s no violence there, no force, nothing oppressive. Kara ends up clutching at Dinah’s hands. She feels her fingers pressing through, the pads of the tips brushing against her own palms.

“Like I said. It takes a lot to be physically here,” Dinah whispers. “Light touches are one thing.”

“But being able to move stuff, be visible, bear any weight - that takes a lot?” Kara finishes, posing it as a question though really, she already knows the answer. Maybe she doesn’t want to seem presumptuous. This whole ghost or hallucination thing is new to her.

“Yeah.” Dinah is laying down next to her.

“...do you do this a lot? Lay here? I never feel it. Just your hands.”

There’s a pregnant pause between them before Dinah quietly, “Almost every night. I know, it’s creepy. But I am a ghost.” There’s a dryness to her voice that tries to hide something that sounds an awful lot like loneliness. “It seems to calm you. When you start moving a lot, twisting in your sleep, I try to make it so you feel me behind you or beside you. It doesn’t always work but sometimes it’s enough.”

Kara smiles in the dark. “After everything I’ve been through, my creepy meter is a little skewed.” It’s permission and gratitude - perhaps without the level of vulnerability explicitly saying either would make her feel. She thinks Dinah will understand though - understand what’s not said clearly but is there, and why Kara can’t bring herself to speak those specific words.

They lay there, in the dark, awake but silent. It’s strange - Kara is used to having someone with her in the bedroom but there’s a physical presence that’s lacking with Dinah. It helps that voice at the back of her head, the one saying she’s insane, stay strong. Maybe she is. Maybe she doesn’t care anymore. Probably a bad sign, but, she’s exhausted and relieved to have someone there to talk to who gets it. Who doesn’t need her to be okay, who doesn’t need to know she’s recovered, and Michael hasn’t left lasting damage.

“I could kill him.”

Kara blinks a few times. She’s not certain if what she heard was real or a dream creeping in as she started to drift back off, but the words drag her right back out. “What?”

“Your ex. If he finds you. I can kill him. It won’t change what he’s done to you, but it will keep him from causing you more harm.” Her face is pressed to Kara’s ear, nose nuzzling at her temple. A hand gently strokes over Kara’s opposite cheek. “Men like him, they take and they take, and they never learn. They might apologize and say they will, but they never do. They think they’re better than the ones who aren’t sorry for the hurt they cause, but sometimes they’re worse.”

Dinah isn’t wrong. That’s what scares Kara. 

It’s that fear of Michael finding her again that feeds the nightmares, makes it harder to push them away when she wakes up. She thinks she might always have nightmares, but that uncertainty, that waiting for what feels like an inevitability that haunts her the most.

What if this is all in her head? What if this is her own mind, wanting an excuse, wanting some imaginary friend to say these things and make this offer and go to the extreme, a fall guy for Kara’s own conscience? She doesn’t think it is. Maybe she’s more delusional than ever, but she’s looked into the history of the apartment. Things that she did not know until after Dinah appeared, told Kara details of her life.

There was a Dinah Laurel Lance that lived in the apartment five years ago. She’d been killed in a fight with an ex of hers, a crime boss, Diaz, that she’d informed on - he’d gotten out on bail thanks to a slick lawyer, tracked her down. She’d gone down fighting though, the whole building had heard her screams and an awful shout from him before gunshots. They’d both been found dead - Dinah from shots to her stomach and chest, Diaz from several stabs to his body including neck, chest, and side. He’d been covered with scratches and bite marks. Dinah had been shot at close range.

Kara had thrown up after reading the details. Had a small breakdown in the work restroom. Told herself she must have been given vague, more palatable details by the real estate agent even though she can’t remember.

But Michael always said she had a faulty memory. Remembered things that weren’t real, forgot things that were.

“Okay.”

They don’t say anything else. Kara doesn’t dream anymore that night.

\--

Things fall into a strange routine after that night.

Kara works. She spends time with Alex and Kelly. Goes out with friends. Starts to rebuild the life that Michael spent time carefully breaking down and cutting her off from. She has fun. She looks over her shoulder sometimes, smiles and tells Alex everything is fine when her sister notices - but she has fun. She lives. Takes her medications every morning and every night.

Dreams. Often wakes screaming, but Dinah is there. Sometimes Kara can see her, sometimes it’s the barest hint of touch and a whisper in her ear. It is enough.

That promise hangs in the air between them, a possibility that feels as inevitable as Kara’s fear that the opportunity for it will come, that Michael will find her and force his way back into her life because he needs her, he can’t live without her, he can’t be a good person if she isn’t there to set him straight, doesn’t she know that?

But life goes on. And it’s nice, having someone there. That feeling of belonging settles back in, of being home. Kara doesn’t mind the swaying fruit basket. She doesn’t tell her therapist she has a roommate, but the woman says Kara seems to be making progress.

Maybe she isn’t crazy.

Everything feels hopeful. Promising. Like one day Kara can move on and not constantly feel herself being dragged back to that place and time over the slightest trigger - those days where she felt so small and trapped and helpless.

And then she wakes up to arms pinning her down by her chest, a hand over her mouth.

\--

Alex finds her at the hospital, answering questions from the two detectives that were called to the scene. She rushes in and hugs Kara, tears in her eyes and Kelly not far behind. She switches into overprotective big sister mode the moment she notices the cops, but Kara tells her it’s okay. 

“I just want to get this over with.”

It takes roughly an hour to finish things with the detectives. The shock is wearing off by then, and Kara prays she didn’t let anything slip. She’s having a hard time remembering what happened between waking up to Michael on top of her and Alex rushing to her side. The lead detective tells her they’ll be in touch, but she’s free to go, and Kara can only nod, numb, while Alex glares at the men as they leave.

Kelly talks with her, calms her in a way that Alex can’t quite manage. Her future sister in law goes into psychologist mode, and Kara appreciates it.

She needs to feel grounded right now. She doesn’t want to see the pity or the guilt in Alex’s eyes, doesn’t want to think about the horror of what happened. She wants to be there, in the hospital room, with her sister and sister’s  fiancée , and just be glad that she’s free. 

Kara laughs, soft at first, and then it bubbles up, almost hysterical. Her vision blurs with hot tears, and she laughs and sobs and lets Alex hold her and Kelly talk her through it and tries not to remember the terror in Michael’s eyes or the wicked glee in Dinah’s standing behind him, her hand inside his chest and squeezing.

None of that matters now. 

She’s free.

\--

A couple of months after that night - after Kara is cleared of any wrongdoing even though the exact cause of death is still up for debate - she finally gets her apartment warming party, complete with potstickers and games. It’s like old times, before Michael entered her life times - everyone is laughing, happy, having fun.

There aren’t any looks cast Kara’s way - the pitying kind or the suspicious ones. There are no murmurs about what happened in that apartment, in the bedroom. 

At some point, when Kara goes to the kitchen to grab another bottle of wine, James steps in there too. “I’m glad you’re doing okay,” he tells her. His expression is serious, somber - but there’s no guilt over what he did or didn’t do to help, no pity or suffocating worry for Kara and her emotional baggage. “Whatever happened, you survived. And I hope that maybe this, as awful as it was, gives you some closure.”

Kara smiles and hugs him. “Thank you,” she says. She means it. She’s working with her therapist on accepting more support, not internalizing and leaning on herself and shunning anything that verges on sympathy. “So, when are you going to finally ask Nia out?”

James’ cheeks darken just a little and a sheepish smile forms on his lips. He gives a shrug. “That obvious?”

Kara grins. “Yeah. On both accounts. Come on.” She grabs the wine and leads him out, winking at him when Nia looks over and smiles his way. She glances back at the kitchen and feels her stomach flutter.

The fruit basket is swaying.

_ I knew you’d like my friends. _

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Mon-el is a kind of weird name for someone who's just human so I used the fake alias he was given in Supergirl.


End file.
